JAPAN'S NATION BRANDING: RECENT EVOLUTION AND POTENTIAL FUTURE PATHS - Brand Horizons
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JAPAN’S NATION BRANDING: RECENT
EVOLUTION AND POTENTIAL FUTURE PATHS
Keith Dinnie
Version February 2008
Accepted for Journal of Current Japanese Affairs
Copyright © 2009 Keith Dinnie. All rights reserved.
Dr Keith Dinnie
Temple University Japan
4-1-27 Mita, Minato-ku
Tokyo 108-0073
Japan
Email: dinnie@tuj.ac.jp
Web: www.brandhorizons.com
1“Japan’s Nation Branding: Recent Evolution and
Potential Future Paths”
Keith Dinnie
Associate Professor of Business
Temple University, Japan Campus
2Biographical and contact information
Dr Keith Dinnie
Associate Professor of Business
Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ)
4-1-27 Mita, Minato-ku
Tokyo 108-0073
Japan
Tel 03-5441-9800 (ext 323)
Fax 03-5765-2530
Email: dinnie@tuj.ac.jp
Keith Dinnie’s main area of interest is the emerging field of nation branding, with a
particular focus on four key areas: export promotion, inward investment, tourism, and
public diplomacy. He is the author of the world’s first academic text book on nation
branding, ‘Nation Branding – Concepts, Issues, Practice’, published 2008 by Elsevier
Butterworth-Heinemann. He has delivered seminars, conference speeches and lectures
in the UK, Germany, Iceland, Greece, Portugal, China, and Japan. He teaches courses
on international marketing, business communications, and business ethics. Previously
he has taught undergraduate and Masters level courses on brand management and
strategy, new product development, services marketing, and advertising management.
3Abstract
Interest in the concept and practice of nation branding has proliferated in recent years.
Whilst it is clearly true that nations have always sought to impose themselves and
promote their economic, diplomatic and military interests, it is only in the last decade
or so that nations have turned to the explicit use of the techniques of branding as
practised in the business world. Terms such as ‘brand image’ and ‘brand identity’ are
increasingly used to describe the perceptions that are held of nations amongst their
various ‘stakeholders’. This article outlines the key aspects of nation branding and
then considers the various nation branding activities engaged in by the Japanese
government in recent years. Potential future paths for Japan’s nation branding are also
explored.
Keywords
Nation branding; public diplomacy; Japan
4“Japan’s nation branding: Recent evolution and potential future
paths”
1. Introduction
Interest in the concept and practice of nation branding has proliferated in recent years,
as more and more governments around the world attempt to harness the power of
commercial branding techniques in order to improve their country’s image and
reputation across a wide range of sectors. The Japanese government has been actively
engaged in developing nation branding activities to boost Japan’s exports and tourism,
although Japan’s efforts to attract inward investment – normally a key objective of
nation branding strategy – have been called into question. Before looking in detail at
Japan’s nation branding, an overview will now be given of the key aspects of nation
branding.
2. Key Aspects of Nation Branding
Whilst it is clearly true that nations have always sought to impose themselves and
promote their economic, diplomatic and military interests, it is only in the last decade
or so that nations have turned to the explicit use of the techniques of branding as
practised in the business world. Terms such as ‘brand image’ and ‘brand identity’ are
increasingly used to describe the perceptions that are held of nations amongst their
various ‘stakeholders’. As van Ham (2001) has noted, “Smart states are building their
brands around reputations and attitudes in the same way smart companies do”. This
irruption of the vocabulary of branding into the international affairs of nations is not
universally welcomed and there is a widespread sense of cynicism and suspicion
regarding the appropriateness and relevance of such overtly commercial practices.
However, almost every government in the world is now engaged in one way or
another with nation branding – most visibly through the commissioning of glossy
advertising campaigns on CNN, and less visibly through the hiring of public relations
agencies in an attempt to manipulate opinion in target audiences. A comprehensive
nation branding strategy would also encompass initiatives and programmes to
stimulate diaspora mobilization, enhance the coordination of the nation’s key
institutions and organisations, and ensure a reasonable degree of consistency in the
country’s official communications and behaviours. Many advertising agencies,
branding consultancies, and public relations firms have found nation branding to be
an extremely lucrative revenue stream during the past few years.
Concomitantly, public scrutiny of the interaction between politicians and private
sector communications professionals has grown, although not to the same extent as
the rigorous scrutiny that is applied to the socially responsible (or irresponsible)
behaviour of business corporations. Occasionally, the mainstream media takes an
interest in the lobbying activities conducted particularly by American PR firms on
behalf of repressive regimes, as was seen when one of the key advisers of Republican
presidential candidate John McCain was forced to resign from the McCain team when
the adviser was shown to have been involved with a lobbying firm that worked on
behalf of the Myanmar government.
5Public scrutiny of this type can be unnerving for politicians, particularly in
democracies where voters tend to react unfavourably to media reports about what is
perceived to be extravagant spending on advertising, PR, logos and all the other
paraphernalia of branding. This is one reason why many governments take a low-key
approach to public pronouncements on their nation branding activities. For example,
prior to the G8 summit in Hokkaido in July 2008, the Japanese government
announced that it would be hiring a private sector communications agency in Tokyo
to train some of the country’s official representatives to communicate in English more
effectively with the foreign media. When asked how much money was going to be
spent on this initiative, the government spokesperson replied that it would not be a
large amount – presumably this downbeat answer was designed to defuse potential
public criticism of the initiative.
Whereas private sector communications consultancies have been quick to jump on the
nation branding bandwagon, academic interest in the subject of nation branding has
been slower to take off although there has been an exponential increase in the number
of journal articles published on the topic in the past three or four years. A key stage in
the deepening of academic interest in nation branding occurred with the founding of
the journal ‘Place Branding’ in 2004, under the editorship of Simon Anholt who is
widely considered to be the founder-of-the-field. The journal’s name was soon
modified to ‘Place Branding and Public Diplomacy’ to better reflect the twin business
and diplomatic components of the place branding concept. Other journals now publish
papers on nation branding and the somewhat scant theory base currently underpinning
nation branding can be expected to become more robust over the coming years as
more research is conducted in the field.
2.1 Nation Branding for Export Promotion, Inward Investment, and Tourism
The key commercial objectives of nation branding are to boost export promotion,
inward investment, and tourism. Traditionally, national tourism organisations have
been assigned the role of projecting a country’s image but there is a growing
awareness that the imagery employed for tourism purposes may deliver few if any
benefits beyond directly tourism-related goals; indeed, many nations have concluded
that the sustained use of the bucolic, rural imagery often favoured by tourism
organisations may actually damage perceptions of the nation in other domains. For
example, positioning a nation as a business-friendly location or as a hotbed of
innovation may be difficult if the overwhelming imagery is of a nostalgic, natural
history or heritage hue. One of the prime challenges for nation branding is to
adequately balance the diverse mix of attributes that most nations possess.
In terms of export promotion, there is an ongoing debate as to whether individual
product/corporate brands enhance the image of the overarching nation brand, or vice-
versa. Does the image of Sony enhance the image of Japan, or does the image of
Japan enhance the image of Sony? In some cases, commercial brands deliberately
downplay their country of origin in order to appear as being ubiquitous global brands,
present everywhere but from nowhere. For many years, Nokia has downplayed its
Finnish origins to such an extent that surveys in the United States reveal that a clear
majority of American students believe that Nokia is a Japanese brand. In other cases,
well established brands that have invested considerable budgets over a timeframe of
several decades in highlighting their country of origin, feel unwilling to participate in
6nation branding campaigns because they take the view that they would be subsidising
inferior brands. Such a situation occurred with the shortlived ‘Scotland The Brand’
organisation, where many of the big Scotch whisky brands refused to carry the logo of
that organisation’s accreditation scheme because they felt that the logo offered no
added value to them; if anything, they feared that their own brand image could have
been tarnished through association with more downmarket brands that may have used
the logo.
Some export brands assume iconic status. In the case of Japan, corporate megabrands
such as Sony, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Toyota have certainly contributed to the
positive associations of the ‘Made in Japan’ label. Another exportable icon of Japan is
the Shinkansen bullet train. Japanese efforts to export the Shinkansen to China and
Taiwan have been analysed by Hood (2007), who makes the following clarification:
“Shinkansen is not simply a bullet train; it is an entire system spanning and
transforming the Japanese archipelago. Indeed, ‘Shinkansen’ literally refers to the
line, not the train, although it has come to mean the train also”. The exporting of such
an icon of Japan is obviously complicated by political considerations and international
relations.
Japan’s export promotion efforts fall largely under the auspices of the Japan External
Trade Organization (JETRO). JETRO is a large and well-resourced organisation that
is engaged not only with export promotion but also with attracting inward investment.
In a wide-ranging and extremely informative article, JETRO auditor Teiji Sakurai
(2007) identifies four major issues that export promotion agencies need to focus on:
first, the importance of establishing a public-private consensus on export promotion;
second, the need for collaboration among the various organisations concerned in
export promotion; third, the drafting of appropriate industrial policies and SME (small
and medium-sized enterprises) policies; and fourth, how to attract foreign capital.
Interestingly, there is no mention of nation branding. One of the few nations to have
developed a clear strategy in which the nation’s commercial brands collaborate with
the public authorities in order to achieve the twin goals of enhancing the nation brand
at the same time as enhancing individual commercial brands is Spain, where the
‘Leading Brands of Spain Association’ is active in many markets, including Japan.
One of JETRO’s characteristics is that it is keenly aware of the link between export
promotion and inward investment. The link is straightforward but often overlooked by
other nations – inward investment frequently results in the production of goods that
are subsequently exported. Motorola, for instance, is one of the top ten exporters
within China. To date, nation branding has made relatively few inroads into the
domain of inward investment compared to other domains such as tourism promotion
and public diplomacy. However, one high profile case of nation branding to attract
inward investment is ‘The New France’ campaign. This campaign involved a high
level of collaboration between numerous French government departments and the
private sector in a joint effort to reduce negative perceptions of France as a place to do
business. In terms of tourism, perceptions of France were found to be highly positive
but corporate perceptions of France as a possible investment location were much more
negative. The New France campaign sought to address this through the use of
testimonials from chief executives of multinationals operating in France, advertising
campaigns in relevant business publications, and an intense round of face-to-face
meetings with business executives in targeted foreign countries.
7It is in the area of tourism that governments feel most comfortable with the techniques
of nation branding. Projecting positive images of a country’s tourist attractions is a
well established and familiar activity, and the benefits appear to be so clear that there
is little media hostility to the public funding of tourism strategies. However, there
needs to be more coordination between tourism organisations and trade promotion
organisations in order to achieve a multidimensional image of the nation (Dinnie
2008) and to avoid the risk of accidentally positioning the nation as a rural backwater.
Japan’s recent tourism promotion has featured the ‘Yokoso Japan’ campaign, an
interesting example of ignoring the marketing mantra that any communications must
speak the language of the consumer, not the language of the producer. The weakness
of the ‘Yokoso Japan’ slogan is that the word ‘Yokoso’ means nothing to the vast
majority of English speakers. However, the strength of the slogan conversely resides
in its strangeness and unfamiliarity. Through its unusual appearance, the word
‘Yokoso’ has a high impact factor. People notice it, but whether they actively process
it and understand the message is something that presumably the Japanese tourism
authorities are measuring through market research. Currently, the focus of Japanese
tourism efforts is on attracting tourists from other parts of Asia; it will be intriguing to
see if the ‘Yokoso Japan’ slogan is still used in coming years when the European and
American markets are more vigorously targeted.
2.2 Nation Branding and Public Diplomacy – Leveraging Soft Power
Although they share similar goals with regard to fostering positive perceptions of a
country, nation branding and public diplomacy have until relatively recently followed
separate paths. The study of nation branding has been conducted largely by scholars
in the field of marketing and international business, whereas public diplomacy has
been studied by those in the field of international relations. Public diplomacy could be
considered as a subset of nation branding along with export promotion, tourism
promotion, and the attraction of inward investment. The most succinct definition of
public diplomacy is that offered by Melissen (2007: xvii), who describes it as “the
relationship between diplomats and the foreign publics with whom they work”. The
key distinction between public diplomacy and traditional diplomacy is that the former
involves diplomats communicating with foreign publics whereas the latter involves
diplomats communicating with other diplomats. Clearly, a different skill set is
required for public diplomacy compared to traditional diplomacy. Countries such as
the USA, Canada, and Spain have developed training programmes to ensure that new
generations of diplomats possess the necessary communications skills and
commercial awareness to fulfil a public diplomacy role.
Closely related to public diplomacy is the concept of ‘soft power’ advanced by Joseph
Nye, Jr. (1990), who argues that:
Soft co-optive power is just as important as hard command power.
If a state can make its power seem legitimate in the eyes of others,
it will encounter less resistance to its wishes. If its culture and
ideology are attractive, others will more willingly follow.
In the same article, Nye also observes that “Japan has certainly done far better with its
strategy as a trading state since 1945 than it did with its military strategy to create a
8Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere in the 1930s”. Unlike military-based hard
power, the essence of soft power resides to a large extent in the promotion of a
country’s culture. Culture is usually seen as a non-threatening, enriching and
pleasurable experience and phenomenon. Many countries have set up institutions to
export their nation’s culture, such as the British Council, the Goethe Institut, and more
recently China’s investment in the creation of a worldwide network of Confucius
Institutes. However, Cynthia P. Schneider, a former US Ambassador to the
Netherlands, has warned that “without institutional support, cultural diplomacy is not
systematic, but capricious and sporadic, reflecting the interests of individual
ambassadors” (2007: 160). Individual ambassadors may not be enamoured of the
public-facing role that public diplomacy would demand of them, and therefore
countries need to develop formal strategies for training their diplomats in this respect
and also for establishing planned programmes of cultural promotion.
Japan has been criticised as being weak in terms of soft power. In a recent article in
the Asahi Shimbun (AS, 09/02/08), Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of
Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University Japan, argues that:
Despite its economic weight, Japan lacks strength in what is
known as soft power… Japanese universities wield minimal
influence. Only a few Japanese thinkers in the social sciences
and humanities have a foreign audience…If Japan wishes to
develop international human networks, it will need elite
undergraduate programs, as well as some high schools where
most courses are taught in English. This will allow the country’s
future leaders to establish global connections from the time they
enter college while familiarizing themselves with foreign
cultures thanks to overseas professors and students.
Whilst Japan does not appear to score highly on any measures of English language
ability, a far more positive picture emerges when one looks at other dimensions of
Japan’s soft power such as the international success of Japanese fashion, anime, and
other aspects of the ‘Cool Japan’ brand discussed in section 3. The Japanese
government is currently formulating a new cultural strategy, which will emerge from
the deliberations of the Cultural Affairs Agency’s advisory panel on strategies for
enhancing international appreciation of Japanese culture (JT, 10/04/08).
3. Recent Evolution of Japan’s Nation Branding
Despite, or perhaps because of, Japan’s postwar economic success there has been
sustained criticism by foreign commentators of Japan’s allegedly insular and closed
behaviour. It is within this context of disapproval that Japan has had to develop its
recent nation branding strategies. Grimes (2005) identifies three major financial issues
that contribute to the negative perceptions held by many regarding the Japanese
economy: first, banking regulation; second, the postal saving system; and third, the
unattractiveness of Tokyo’s financial markets. It is important for Japan, Grimes
argues, that Japanese policy makers need to consider “what sort of image, or brand, it
should be projecting to the outside world in order to improve its ability to shape its
own external environment”. The current image of Japan as a difficult place to do
9business is exemplified by Ozawa’s (2003) observation that “foreign competition in
imports and inward FDI was fended off, if not by outright legal restrictions, by the
built-in bias of regulations and red tape”. This apparent ‘fending off’ of inward
foreign direct investment (FDI) is a recurring theme in business and current affairs
media coverage of Japan.
A high-profile incident demonstrating Japan’s perceived unwillingness to welcome
FDI occurred in April 2008, when the Japanese government rejected a request by UK-
based hedge fund The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) to raise its stake in Japan’s
largest electricity wholesaler. The reason given for the rejection was that TCI’s
request posed a potential threat to national security (JT, 17/04/08). TCI attempted to
escalate the rejection into a European Union – Japan bilateral issue but this was
declined by European Union trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, who did however
express the opinion that Japan “remains the most closed investment market in the
developed world”, (JT, 25/04/08). It seems unlikely that radical changes will be made
any time soon to the existing restrictions on inward investment flows, given that
currently “Japanese politics are in a state of frozen immobility, the Fukuda
government having lost control over the Upper House but too fearful of annihilation
at the polls to seek a mandate” (McCormack 2008). Therefore, for the foreseeable
future, Japan’s extremely low ratio of FDI to gross domestic product (GDP) can be
expected to remain around its current level of 2.5 percent compared to 8.8 percent in
Korea, 13.5 in the United States, 25.1 in Germany, and 44.6 in the United Kingdom
(Caryl and Kashiwagi 2008).
The dangers of an insular attitude taking root in Japan are highlighted by Ishizuka
(2008a), who warns that there are some signs that xenophobia is creating “a latter-day
sakoku mentality – national isolation – to the great concern of those Japanese who
are aware of such a mentality’s significant dangers”. In a different article, Ishizuka
(2008b) goes on to suggest that “Japan is a nation that constantly feels that it is not
being heard enough on the world stage”. Ishizuka’s view is that this problem is self-
inflicted due to Japanese unwillingness to try hard enough to communicate their point
of view. This opinion appears to be shared by the BBC’s Tokyo correspondent Chris
Hogg, who contends that “Japan is nervous and afraid to stand up for itself and talk
about itself... The good stories about Japan just don’t get told”, (JT, 25/04/08).
Another echo of this viewpoint comes from Shintaro Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo,
who bluntly declares that “We Japanese are bad at promoting ourselves” (Wilson
2007).
Despite the apparent validity of the above observations on Japan’s insularity and
closedness, it would be a distortion to depict Japan only in such negative terms. The
country has made significant investments and efforts in recent years to brand itself
and to project its attractive qualities to the outside world. A thorough and detailed
account of Japan’s nation branding activities from 2002-2006 is provided by Akutsu
(2008), who traces the development of Japan’s branding strategies from then Prime
Minister Koizumi’s policy speech in February 2002 through to the activities of the
Intellectual Property Strategic Program in 2006. The ambitious goal set by the 2006
program is to “improve the image and reputation of Japan and turn it into a nation that
is loved and respected by people throughout the world”. Akutsu reports how the Japan
Brand Working Group was set up in 2004 and compiled a report titled ‘Promotion of
Japan Brand Strategy’, whose three main goals were to foster a rich food culture,
10establish diverse and reliable local brands, and to establish Japanese fashion as a
global brand.
At a regional level there have been numerous initiatives carried out in Japan in recent
years in attempts to stimulate the development of high quality local brands.
Encouraging a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurialism has been high on the
agenda during recent years, and the Japanese government has contributed to this by
launching the ‘Japan Brand Development Assistance Program’ through the Small and
Medium Enterprise Agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2004
(Ikuta et al. 2007). As well as encouraging the development of successful product
brands, such regional initiatives have also seen a flourishing of place branding activity
whereby individual cities and regions develop their own brand identities.
These indications of focused, government-sponsored nation branding by Japan may
go some way to dispelling the gloomy views expressed by the critics of insular Japan.
By engaging actively in nation branding, Japan is demonstrating its willingness to
engage with external audiences. Another encouraging sign is that the Japanese
government set up in July 2008 a new initiative to drive forwards its public diplomacy
strategy. It would be far more worrying if Japan gave up on its nation branding and
turned inward, not caring what the rest of the world thinks of it.
Japan’s nation branding, like that of any other country, comprises a combination of
planned and unplanned activity. In addition to the programmes outlined above that are
directly sponsored by the Japanese government, there are a multitude of cultural and
creative events and activities constantly going on, which contribute towards what
Douglas McGary writing in Foreign Policy famously termed, ‘Japan’s Gross National
Cool’ (McGray 2002). McGray’s key contention is that Japan has moved from being
an economic power in the 1980s to being a cultural superpower in the twenty-first
century, based on cultural outputs ranging from architecture to fashion, and animation
to cuisine. It is Japan’s spontaneously produced culture that has given rise to the ‘Coll
Japan’ brand. American cartoonist Charles Danziger, co-author with Mimei Sakamoto
of ‘Harvey and Estuko’s Manga Guide to Japan’, suggests that manga helped Japan to
attain its ‘cool’ status in the United States, replacing the previous dull salaryman
imagery that prevailed during the 1980s (DY, 09/05/08). Emphasising the potentially
powerful contribution of design in creating a nation brand, Hirano (2006) proposes
that “the combination of the ascetic exclusivity of Japaneseness and the mainstream,
progressive pulse of modernization” may be a strong basis for constructing a powerful
nation brand with international appeal. The international success of the iconic ‘Hello
Kitty’ brand contributes another layer to Japan’s soft power, with the additional
benefit of providing a softening kawaii counterpoint in contrast to the aggression of
much contemporary manga output.
4. Potential Future Paths
Having looked at the recent context and evolution of Japan’s nation branding, at least
three potential future paths may be discerned.
For Japan, as for other nations, benefits could be derived from a more coordinated
approach between the different organisations engaged in various components of the
11country’s overall nation branding strategy. Links could be developed between tourism
and export promotion, for example, in order to encourage visitors to Japan to continue
buying Japanese brands once they have returned to their home country.
A more entrepreneurial and publicity-oriented mindset could be encouraged amongst
Japanese diplomats as part of ongoing development of public diplomacy strategy.
Other countries have demonstrated such a mindset. Within Japan, for example,
Estonia have enlisted as a goodwill ambassador the Estonian sumo wrestler ‘Baruto’.
Baruto has generated a vast amount of publicity for Estonia, publicity which Estonia
would not have had the financial resources to buy through conventional advertising
campaigns.
Finally, Japan is supremely well placed to leverage the soft power potential of food
and drink. Expatriates who have lived in Japan know that Japanese cuisine is
extraordinarily diverse; however, in many foreign countries the only form of Japanese
cuisine that is known by the general public is sushi. There are still strong negative
perceptions in markets such as the United Kingdom, where Japanese restaurants are
widely perceived as serving only raw fish at excessively high prices. Japan should
initiate a strategy of izakaya diplomacy, encouraging Japanese restaurant
entrepreneurs to set up izakayas in the UK and other European markets. These
izakayas would provide a more earthy and boisterous dining experience than existing
sushi restaurants, and would help propel Japanese cuisine away from the fringes and
into the mainstream of international dining.
5. Conclusion
Japan’s nation branding takes place within a context of highly critical attention from
the Western business media, who routinely accuse Japan of being insular and closed.
Japan’s extremely low ratio of FDI to GDP appears to support such criticism.
However, other audiences are more positively predisposed to Japan, particularly with
regard to what can be termed Japan’s soft power – its cultural outputs such as manga,
fashion, architecture and design. The Japanese government has initiated several
programmes as part of its overall nation branding strategy, with a particular focus on
encouraging the development of successful and distinctive local brands from different
regions of Japan. In the next two to three years, it is likely that there will also be an
increased effort to develop Japan’s public diplomacy strategy. In terms of Japan’s
nation branding capabilities, future success will depend very much upon the extent to
which the Japanese public and private sectors collaborate in order to achieve shared
goals.
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